How cruise ship passengers should prepare for sickness or injury at sea

Most passengers don’t buy travel insurance. Travel insurance might sound like a waste of money, which may explain why most passengers don’t buy it, but insurance can save very sick passengers hundreds of thousands of dollars, Rivkind said. He had one client stuck with a $500,000 air ambulance bill. Carnival’s Cruise Vacation Protection Plan reimburses up to $10,000 of certain medical-related costs and up to $30,000 for emergency medical evacuation, the company says on its site. Carnival’s policies run from $49 per person for the least expensive cruises to up to $189 per person for costlier trips. But, Rivkind said, it’s typically a better deal to buy insurance from an independent company than directly from a cruise company.